The proliferation of electronic equipment, and in particular the use of micro-electronics, has caused a need for surge protection of equipment varying all the way from clock radios and other small appliances to computers and a huge variety of electronic, data processing, testing, analytical, and other electronic equipment.
While many surge protection devices are presently on the market, numerous disadvantages are present in these devices. The prior surge protection devices are designed to be used only in a power circuit of a particular voltage. Thus, these devices cannot be universally used for power circuits having different voltage ratings, but instead require a completely different unit for each voltage rating. This increases the number of different surge protection devices that must be produced and stocked to accommodate the various wiring devices having different voltage ratings used in the industry. Moreover, these protection devices are costly because they require special tooling for each voltage rating. In addition, many of these protection devices are built directly into the wiring device, thereby increasing the overall cost to provide existing power circuits with surge protection. Finally, many of these devices merely plug into existing female wiring devices and provide a second female outlet, thereby duplicating the female wiring device.
Examples of these prior surge protection devices are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,369,153 to Arnold et al.; 3,840,781 to Brown; 4,071,872 to Phillips, Jr.; 4,075,676 to Phillips, Jr.; 4,191,985 to Phillips, Jr.; 4,217,619 to Tibolla; 4,500,862 to Shedd; and 4,688,135 to Leopold.